Snippets
by HeiszKetchup
Summary: Things I write in my spare time, train rides home - a collection of short pieces about different characters. Latest chapter: metaphorical musings on my favourite black and yellow pairing.


Everything, Blake thinks, is turned to ash in the presence of Yang.

Not that it actually burns, of course – a world of charred belongings and burnt out husks of buildings would be terrible to live in – but rather that things lose their colour, their worth when set beside the golden brawler. She thinks of the way a candle cannot compare to the sun; the way the shine of a penny cannot amount to the glimmer of gold.

Everything, Blake believes, is dull when Yang is around it, as though the light and colour fade from the world, shifting to lie in the depths of her pupils, strands of light catching on the curls of her hair, freckles standing out against tanned cheeks like splotches of paint.

Yang is bright, her laugh shining as much as the lamps lit around her, flickering flames reflecting in her eyes. She is vibrant, her hair a burnished gold in the sunlight, a streak of ochre in the darkness. Light catches on her fingertips, casting shadows across the span of scars on her knuckles, a topographical map of the bar fights and brawls that make up the blonde's backstory.

Words linger on her partner's lips in the same way wisps of smoke hang in the air once a candle is blown out, a tangible notion that fades away into the silence. When Yang laughs, Blake muses, the world around her seems to quiet, letting the sound akin to swinging chimes and echoing alleyways ring out in the empty air.

The world is bright and brilliant, colours and sounds lighting up the lives within it – but around Yang, everything is muted, letting the girl with golden hair shine like the sun. She is the flame, the flickering fire that glows amongst embers and coals; a myriad of red and orange hues, spattering sparks of yellow.

And the world, beside the flare of the flames, seems as dull as ashes, as fragile and worthless when lit up by the light of Yang. Eyes are drawn to the light, drawn to Yang, to the laugh that sparks in the silence, flint in the back of her throat. Kindling resides in the bones of those around her, and Yang's fingertips are like matches, letting warmth spread to the ones around her.

To Blake, the world is made of ash, and Yang is the fire that sits in the heart of it all, at home in the hearth of the living. She watches, and believes, that Yang is a pyre without any restraints, a bonfire that draws people round its boundaries to watch the flames flicker and grow.

She watches Yang, watching in the same way someone is entranced by the endless dance of fire, eyes following the erratic motions of an untamed force. Blake watches the woman laugh and smile, watches the way tanned skin crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the way freckles shift on her skin with the motion of her grin. She sees the way a clenched fist becomes a hand again, gnarled knuckles loosening and a scarred, lined palm revealed once more.

Blake watches her partner, as entranced by the girl as she was as a child standing around oil drums, taking note of the way the flames lit up the faces of strangers, finding solace in their cheekbones and casting shadows into their eyes. Yang is the same, her laughter and smile lighting up the world around her, an ethereal glow that spreads to the faces surrounding her, tinder bones catching aflame with her touch.

The world is made of ashes around Yang, a muted landscape surrounding a pyre, and Blake sees no reason to look away.

* * *

Everything, Yang thinks, becomes ribbons around Blake.

Purely metaphorical, of course. No actual ribbons wind their way through her life, save the one wrapped between thin fingers and trailing up a dark arm, a latticework of black silk woven with care. That, and the one wrapped carefully around tufted ears, velvet fur hidden behind smooth fabric, a secret tied up neatly in a bow.

No other ribbons adorn Blake, the one on Gambol Shroud the last of the literal ribbons that flit through the Faunus's life, a tether for the weapon, an anchor for the bloodshed. The rest of the ribbons are imagined, weaving their way through aspects of the world around Blake, intertwined in some places, tangled up in others. It's an odd imagery to assign to the woman, to the woman with dark skin and darker hair, but it's one that oddly fits.

Ribbons, Yang believes, are what make up Blake's words, past, secrets, relationships – strings of silk and threads of textiles weave their way into her actions and conversations, a tapestry formed from the Faunus. Yang watches, and believes, in the ribbons that wind their ways through Blake's world, lilac and lavender eyes following the lines that form across her conversations, draping from letters and looping across punctuation, underlining thoughts and tying together phrases.

She watches as they stretch between her partner and her past, a record of choices and mistakes lain bare by the trail of silk, one that leads the story through memories like a string pinned across a map. They wind through people, through lessons and children standing around oil drums, tracing an ethereal path across time, tying together the past and the present, threading through the missing spots like laces through a shoe.

To Yang, ribbons tie Blake to people, tethers that keep the Faunus from straying away out of reach, a latticework that stretches in a pattern more convoluted than what can be understood, untangled. The ends of ribbons tie those around her back to Blake, coming together to loop at her back like a corset, woven together tight. It's a chain to an anchor, a binding of ethereal form.

Ribbons are what lace around Blake's fingers, crossing her knuckles in a form of a checkerboard, climbing up her arms like ivy vines and merging at the top, railroad tracks converging into a common path. They underline her words, trace a path through her path, and entangle people within her life, caught up in the web of lace and ribbons, taught and tangled.

Yang watches her partner, watches the way ribbons tie a latticework of invisible tethers, a metaphor that seems to become tangible in the darkness, stretches of silk catching light in the corners of the room. She sees them caressing Blake's knuckles in a swath of worn cloth, sees them tying strings between the living, forgotten ribbons trailing behind, cut and frayed or tied in bows at the ends.

The ribbons aren't real, but Yang sees them anyways, finding the metaphors weaving their way through their lives, weaving her back to Blake.


End file.
